Lord Voldemort, Zac Efron, and My Fingernail (Blog #266)

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Welcome to my daily health report. Things don’t look good today; they’re definitely worse than yesterday. I’ve been up for about an hour, and so far I’ve coughed up, blown out, or otherwise ejected enough snot from my body to fill a mason jar. It’s fun to talk about, I know. I’m assuming this is a cold or sinus infection. If it is a sinus infection, it’s especially frustrating, since I thought I was making serious headway in that department. (Get it–headway?) Regardless, I’m think I’m going to start referring to this crud as Lord Voldemort, since it’s most certainly of the dark lord and is apparently going to take a wizard to stop it.

Expecto mucoso!

Last night my friend Bonnie and I went to the opening night of The Greatest Showman, the new Hugh Jackman and Zac Efron (Zac Efron!) movie about PT Barnum. Thinking it would be sold out, we snagged tickets yesterday afternoon and showed up early. Well, apparently everyone was watching Star Wars, since the only people in our theater were me, Bonnie, two little boys and their mother, and a dozen high school cheerleaders. A musical, the film is beautifully shot, sung, and choreographed and tells the story of how PT Barnum started his famous circus and consequently provided a home for society’s outcasts–little people, bearded ladies, etc. Based on the previews, I was really expecting–and wanting–to cry, but I didn’t. This, I think, had to do with the writing–I never fully identified or cared about any of the main characters. Still, it was the perfect way to get out of the house and see Zac Efron on the big screen. As one of the high school girls proclaimed when the audio suddenly got quiet, “God, he’s pretty!”

I hollered back–“Right?”

Currently I’m in a mad dash to get this blog done. I’m going out with a friend this evening, and I expect it to take every bit of energy I possess. That’s fine, since I can take it easy this weekend, but I don’t want to get home tonight and have any of my “have tos” undone. So I need to finish blogging, practice chi kung, and definitely take a shower–I’m sure my friend would appreciate that.

Every day that I don’t feel well, I tell myself I’m going to take it easy and write a short blog–fuck writing–but I haven’t figured out how to do that yet. But now I’m under 500 words and hoping this will be the last paragraph, so maybe I’m making progress. Earlier I sliced into my fingernail with a knife while cutting a sweet potato. My fingernail is only a couple millimeters thick, but it stopped me from slicing into my finger. Perhaps this is what hope is, something little that makes a big difference, something that says tomorrow will be different than today, something that says, “That was a close call, but you’re going to be just fine.”

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Storms don’t define us, they refine us.

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Looking at the Next Hundred Days (Blog #265)

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I don’t know what’s wrong with me. As I’ve said before, I’m not a doctor. Still, that doesn’t keep me from guessing. Last night my body temperature was up and down, so I thought I might have the flu. But this morning I stuck a thermometer in my mouth, and I definitely don’t have a fever. Plus, I feel bad, but I don’t feel THAT bad. Currently I’m trying to figure out if I feel jittery because of whatever this is or because of the medication I’m taking. The more I think about it, the more I get overwhelmed.

Let’s talk about something else, shall we?

A couple days ago the phrase “stop scrolling” came up while blogging, and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. Every time I pick up my phone and look at social media, it’s all I can hear. Stop scrolling. So whereas I’ve still been checking my phone for notifications, I haven’t been mindlessly scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. At the most, I’ve checked out the top four or five posts in my news feed, but that’s it. Part of me thinks, What if I’m missing out on something? But another part of me thinks, Wasn’t my life just fine before Facebook?

So far, I like “less news feed” better. I can’t think of a single recent post that’s given me a bad day, yet I often walk away from social media feeling slightly heavy, worse than I did before. I assume this is cumulative effect, a little bad news here, a little bad news there, a little comparing myself to others everywhere. Lately signing into Facebook or Instagram has felt like walking into a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese–music, videos, games, noises everywhere, everyone running around clamoring for attention. Look at me! Look at my cat! I have a sinus infection! I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with this or that I haven’t fully participated in every bit of it for a long, long time–I’m just saying–it’s a lot to take in day after day after day.

I’ve heard that the average person today processes more information in a week than our ancestors did in a lifetime. Or something like that–I really don’t know what the statistic was. But the point is, we’re on information overload, and our brains and bodies simply weren’t meant to handle it all. Maybe that’s why I’ve been so sick lately–not because I’ve been on Facebook too much, but because my body isn’t able to handle all the current stressors in my life. Clearly, it isn’t. As someone who likes to push, push, push, I don’t like this feedback, but I am trying to listen to it by putting down my phone, taking it easier during the day, sleeping more at night.

Today’s blog is number 265. That’s 265 days in a row of writing, notable because my goal is a year, and that leaves me with 100 days to go. Part of me feels like giving it up even today, like, What am I really doing here? On days that I don’t feel well, it’s especially difficult to imagine that this project is going anywhere or benefiting anyone other than my credit card company. Another part of me is really proud of myself for sticking this out regardless of how it’s received. That part of me thinks that 100 days is a piece of cake, the homestretch, the place where the magic will happen.

In truth, I know the magic has already happened. This project has changed me for the better. Me and My Therapist is the place I’ve found myself over and over again, the place I’ve learned to listen to the still, small voice inside me. (Incidentally, listening to that voice is difficult to do while scrolling.) Honestly, this blog is like home for me, the place I get to be myself. This is the place where I laugh at my own jokes, cry on the keyboard, and get honest. Sometimes that honesty looks like setting boundaries, expressing gratitude, or talking about what my therapist said recently. Other times that honestly looks like saying, “I feel like crap and am tired of trying so hard.” Either way, what you see here is real, at least as real as I know how to be.

This is all I can promise for the next hundred days. I can’t promise I’ll feel better or worse than I do in this moment, I can’t promise whether or not I’ll stick to my commitment to spend less time on social media, and I can’t promise I’ll be consistently funny or profound in my writing. But I can promise honesty about what’s going on inside. For anyone who’s interested, that’s one thing I can do.

And that’s the best blog ending I have at the moment–honestly.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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All things become ripe when they’re ready.

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Doing What I Can (Blog #264)

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Last night I started getting sick again. I can’t tell you how exhausting this is. In bed before midnight, I spent most the night sweating. I’m not sweating now, so Dad said it could have been the heater in the waterbed “acting up.” I plan to have a stern talking to it later on. Anyway, I’ve spent most the day generally worn out, coughing up junk, and nursing a mildly sore throat. I keep telling myself it could be worse. It could be worse, Marcus. It could be worse.

Could it, Also Marcus. Could it really?

Thinking this could be sinus related (since everything with me is sinus related), I ventured out of the house earlier to the Asian food market in search of more Kimchi to swab in my nostrils. I ran out of Kimchi last week and had gotten some from Walmart, but Dad says it’s not the same thing. (I’m not sure how he knows this.) Y’all, the Asian food market has a giant nativity scene set up right by the entrance. This is something I’ve never seen before–the virgin birth inside a local grocery store. Personally, I was disappointed that the baby Jesus wasn’t actually Asian, but talk about one-stop shopping–soy sauce, salvation for the world, and twenty-pound bags of rice all on the same aisle.

I always feel slightly conspicuous when I shop at the Asian food market, like I don’t really belong there because I’m white. Today the woman at the checkout station was wearing rubber gloves as if she were a dentist or surgeon, someone with a medical degree. If I were to ask her about the gloves, I’m sure she’d say they were a sanitary measure, but I thought, You’re not fooling anyone, lady. You’re no doctor. Well, apparently I’m no doctor either, since when the total came to $8.36, I only handed the lady $8.00. (I could have sworn it was $9.00, but hey–my brain is full of snot.) Then the language barrier thing happened, her asking for 36 cents to complete the sale, and me thinking she just wanted the change to make her life easier, like she was gonna give me a dollar back.

“But I don’t HAVE 36 cents,” I said.

She kept pointing at the screen where the total was, then, almost as an afterthought, showed me the one five and three one-dollar bills I’d handed her. Well crap, I said to myself. Convinced she thought I was a stupid American, I apologized as I handed her another dollar, which she gladly took with her rubber-glove-covered hand. I was so embarrassed, I couldn’t get out of the store fast enough. I didn’t even slow down to tell Mary and Joseph how neat and tidy I thought the manger was. Maybe next time I see them I can say, “You’ve really cleaned this place up. It’s just, well, immaculate.”

When I got home and did the kimchi treatment, Dad suggested that I take a Mucinex, something I haven’t tried since this whole sinus disaster started a couple months ago. I mean, it’s not that I haven’t considered it, but when I used Mucinex a year ago, it made my heart race. Of course, that was the extra strength and this was the regular strength, so I ended up saying, “What the hell” and popping the pill. As the Mucinex commercial says, “Let’s end this.”

Now it’s been two hours, and I’m ready to go back to bed. Since I have a dance lesson to teach later, that’s probably not going to happen, but maybe that means I’ll sleep even better tonight. When I woke up sick today, I really wanted to get frustrated and throw a tantrum. You’ve got to be freaking kidding me. This again? But I’m really trying to be more patient than that. More than anything else, I’m trying to be more compassionate than that, to realize that my body is obviously having a hard time here. I guess this is how life goes–some days you wake up well, some days you wake up sick. Hell, some days you walk through a nativity scene in an Asian food market, so let’s stop pretending anything makes sense on this planet, simply take things a day at a time, and do what we can with the day we’ve been given.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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When you hide your hurt, you can’t help but pass it on. It ends up seeping, sometimes exploding out.

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The Steady Source of Heat Within (Blog #263)

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This morning while getting ready for therapy, I gave up my fight against winter and put on thick, wool socks and climbing boots. I refuse to have cold feet, I thought. Well, never let it be said that the universe doesn’t have a sense of humor, since it turned out to be a rather sunny day. Now therapy is over, I’m at the library, and I just took off my long-sleeved shirt in favor of the t-shirt underneath. My feet are absolutely sweating, my armpits are moist (yes, I said moist), and I’m about to start fanning myself like a Mississippi debutante in August.

But. At least I’m not freezing.

Last night I slept for shit. Exhausted, I tried going to bed early, around ten, but woke up a couple hours later and couldn’t fall back asleep until four. I don’t know how people deal with insomnia on a regular basis. God bless you. What I did was watch one documentary and three TED talks and scroll through Facebook until my thumb nearly fell off. As you know, social media is mostly cat memes, clickbait, and political bitching. (And your cute children, of course.) Sometimes I think it’s more stressful than helpful, more bad news than good. So long as I’m blogging, I don’t know that I could completely give up social media, but I’m considering adopting “stop scrolling” as my New Year’s resolution.

God knows it would save me a lot of time.

Currently I’m listening to one of my favorite songs, Africa by Toto (the band, not the dog in Wizard of Oz). There’s a lyric that says, “It’s gonna take a lot to drag me away from you,” and that’s what the idea of scaling back from Facebook feels like. If I’m going to call it what it is, it’s an addiction, something I can’t put down, something that–at least in its current quantity–takes more than it gives. More than once my therapist and I have discussed some online drama–something someone else said or did. You know how you see a picture of two people together and your mind runs wild. This is the stress I’m talking about it. Well, my therapist says, “Forty years ago, you didn’t have to deal with the drama of other people’s lives in this way. Maybe you heard some of the gossip at the local coffee shop, but it wasn’t on-demand, constantly at your fingertips.”

Even as it sit here, I keep wanting to pick up my phone, change tabs on my laptop and start mindlessly scanning my news feed. I guess it’s a way to check out, to leave the world I’m currently in and enter endless others. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with this, but there’s also nothing inherently wrong with where I am right here, right now. The sun is shining, other people are working at their laptops, and I’m listening to 80s music. What more could a girl ask for? Still, I’m a little nervous–maybe it’s the lack of sleep, maybe it’s the fact that therapy often leaves me feeling raw. Either way, the nervousness makes me want to distract myself from it rather than actually listen to it or simply let it run its course.

I’m sure we all try to distract ourselves in one way or the other. We scroll through Facebook, we walk to the refrigerator or turn on the radio, we smoke a cigarette. Hell, if dealing with your feelings were easy, everybody would do it. In the documentary I watched last night, which was about a group of prisoners who participated in an intense meditation program, one of the guys said that you can spend your whole life distracting yourself, but sooner or later you’re left looking at what’s inside.

What are you really running away from?

Having spent a lot of time around meditation and self-help material, I used to think the goal was to get rid of all the uncomfortable, icky feelings. I’d think, If I can just be spiritual enough, I won’t have to feel nervous ever again (phew). Well, first–Good fucking luck, Marcus. Second, I’ve changed my mind about this. More and more, I believe one of the points of spiritual living is self-acceptance, and that means being able to welcome whatever arises in my external and internal life with open arms, or at least curiosity. Why do I feel this way? What can this teach me? What am I really running away from? (If the answer is me, we have a problem.) Naturally, these questions aren’t always easy to answer. Like putting on a pair of wool socks, getting to know yourself is often something you have to warm up to. But this is worth doing, I think, since the alternative looks like endless scrolling, coming to know the ever-changing temperatures of the world outside but never finding the steady source of heat within.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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We're allowed to relabel and remake ourselves.

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Dirty Santa and The Endowment Effect (Blog #262)

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Last night I went to a Christmas party and wore a cowboy hat. (Saddle up, Santa.) Honestly, I’d planned to spend the day with my nose in a book, but my friend Summer, from the improv group, invited me to her place for a Dirty Santa Gift Exchange and the big reveal of her unborn child’s sex. (It’s a girl!) I’m not always in love with group gatherings, especially when they involve new people, but I told myself it wouldn’t kill me to get out of the house and be social, damn it. So I actually took a shower, put on clean clothes, and everything.

I guess last night was about getting out of my comfort zone, since I don’t usually wear cowboy hats either. But a couple months ago my friend Marina gave me this black cowboy hat, a Resistol, and it’s really cool. I believe it belonged to her son. He’s no longer alive, but his hat’s still here. All the tags are still inside the brim, and one of them says, “You have just purchased the most comfortable hat made.” (That’s good to know.) The others say it’s a size seven and three-eights. Apparently it was purchased at a western wear shop owned by Johnnie Lee Wills, a Tulsa musician who performed at Cain’s Ballroom in the 1960s, and it originally cost twenty-one dollars.

And now it’s mine.

If you’re a sore loser like I am, I don’t recommend going to a Christmas party and playing Dirty Santa. The premise is that everyone brings “a good gift” and “a bad gift,” and they all get numbered. Then one-by-one everybody draws numbers and opens the corresponding gifts. This part, of course, is hilarious. Oh look, you got a Walmart gift card (good) and some drink coasters with vaginas on them (obviously bad, at least for a gay man). Well, the dirty part of the game is that rather than opening a new set of gifts, players have the option to take someone else’s gifts, and that’s where my bad attitude started. I’d opened a gift that included a Starbucks gift card and there I was, perfectly satisfied, just minding my own business, when some bitch took it away.

No offense to whoever it was–I’m sure you’re not really a bitch and that you’re normally very kind and don’t go around stealing coffee cards from perfect strangers.

Anyway, this lady traded her gifts with me, which left me with a coffee mug and a Rugrats hat. (Rugrats was a cartoon on Nickelodeon a long time ago, Mom.) Well, two can play at that game, so I ended up stealing four giant Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (good) and a single condom (bad) from Summer’s husband. But then Summer stole those things back, and before it was all said and done, I walked away with a miniature box of generic Corn Pops cereal (bad, bad, very bad) and twenty super-girly postcards (also very bad). I thought, What the hell, universe! Feminine postcards? Can’t you see I’m wearing a cowboy hat over here?

Honestly, losing the Starbucks gift card didn’t completely ruin my evening, but it did bother me more than I’d like to admit. It’s like you think you’re making all this progress–you sell or give away almost all your worldly possessions and think, I don’t need physical objects to make me happy, I’m so–unattached. Then one round of Dirty Santa, and there you are pouting, drowning your sorrows in a bottle of beer and half a dozen chocolate chip cookies, your ego just as intact as it ever was. But I was gonna buy a frappuccino with that gift card! As if that weren’t enough, then someone suggests playing board games. Oh perfect, you think. Another opportunity to lose.

By the time I got home last night, I’d pretty much talked myself down off the ledge. I’d realized there were a handful of other things that have been stressing me out lately, little disappointments that have all added up. And whereas having a total stranger snatch away my Monday morning mocha was the final straw, it was just a straw–certainly not the entire hay bale. Plus, I had a great time at the party. I’m currently focusing on one small irritation, but it was a wonderful evening.

Things are only important because we think they are.

Recently I heard about a psychological phenomenon called The Endowment Effect, which has to do with the magical properties we assign objects when we own them. Like, how many people in the world don’t give a shit about your quilt collection or new car, but you think, These things are special–the best–they belong to me. Personally, I’m in love “my” new cowboy hat. I love that my friend Marina gave it to me, I love the tags inside, and I like to imagine her son walking into the western wear shop and trying it on all those years ago. But the truth is, it’s just damn hat, just like it’s a damn gift card, a damn board game. Things are only important because we think they are.

It seems that life is often a Dirty Santa game. We make plans for things to happen one way, then those plans get snatched away. We don’t always go home with the gifts we had our eyes on. Of course, sometimes it happens the other way around. One day you wake up with nothing, and before you lay your head down that night you’ve got a cappuccino in your stomach you didn’t even pay for. (Harumph.) If you’re lucky, maybe you’ve got someone beside you, someone who can help you use that single condom you got at the party last night. (Wouldn’t that be nice!) Life is so funny. We get upset about the smallest of things. One-by-one the straws pile up, and we break our own backs. We say, “This is mine–that’s yours–I win–you lose,” the whole time forgetting we’re supposed to be having fun down here. Life is just a game, after all.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"We were made to love without conditions. That's the packaging we were sent with."

The Improv Adventure (Blog #261)

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A couple months ago I bought the wrong-sized boxer briefs. These were small, and I’m usually a medium. (I’m glad we can talk about such things.) Anyway, I tried to fit into them, but there was simply no way in hell. I mean, my butt’s really big, and it was like trying to push a bowling ball through a pea shooter. Not cute. At first I thought about trashing the boxer briefs, but I’m not really one to waste things, so then I thought about giving them away. Surely I can find a skinny twink in need of a pair of four-dollar underwear. (Hey–I’m not cheap–they were on sale! Also, look at me, trying to put underwear ON a twink.) But, honestly, giving once-tried-on underwear away is a rather weird thing to do, even for the holidays. I get that. Besides, what would the card say–Thinking of you? Plus, I’d already taken the tags off.

So I just kept them.

The History of my Underpants by Marcus Coker.

Believe it or not, there’s a point here. Last night, in a mad dash to get ready for my first improv comedy show, I realized I didn’t have any clean underwear–except the small boxer briefs! Well, I’ve lost some weight recently, so I thought, What the hell, it can’t hurt to try. So I took a deep breath, and y’all, it’s amazing what a few pounds can do–I actually managed to get the waistband over my hump. Granted, I felt like I was wearing a girdle, but I had clean underwear on, by god. Actually, it was rather pleasant the way they squeezed everything together, pushed one cheek up against the other, and made my assets, well, perkier.

Yes, I said assets.

The improv show last night with The RazorLaughs was a fundraiser for Dwight Mission, somewhere in Oklahoma. I didn’t drive, so I honestly have no idea where it was, but I guess getting people to come to an improv show in the middle of nowhere is about like getting people to attend a rumba lesson in Arkansas. In other words, there weren’t a lot of people there. This made me nervous, like, this could be awkward, but Aaron, Ian, and Summer said they’d performed for small groups before, and sometimes they’re easier than large ones–it just depends on the particular crowd. Fortunately, we lucked out. First of all, we got fed, and the food was great–apple and cranberry stuffing, sweet potatoes, green beans, and make-your-own sugar cookies. (Talk about fancy!) Second, the group was wonderful. We performed for over an hour, and not only did they not leave the room or throw rotten fruit at us, they participated and laughed–a lot.

If you’ve never been to an improv comedy show, it’s intentionally silly and unbelievable. In one of the scenes last night, I was a party host who had to guess what made each attendee special–Ian was a guy who laughed at EVERYTHING, Aaron was a hand model, and Summer was a sloth. It took me FOREVER to guess the sloth thing. Why are you moving so slowly–are you a woman on drugs? I mean, I was only given so much to work with (I knew I was a party host, and that was it), then I had to figure the rest out as I went along. In this sense, it was like an adventure. This is the fun of improv–not knowing where you’re going until you get there. In another scene, Summer was Frosty, and she was fighting with Aaron, who was Santa. Well, before things were over, Santa revealed that Frosty was his son. (Who would have guessed!) Summer said, “Uh, I’m actually your daughter.”

End of scene.

I realize these sketches aren’t that funny to read about it–you’re probably not even laughing out loud–but in the moment, they were hilarious. More than that, at least for me, they were actually interesting. At one point I was watching Summer play Jack Frost and Ian play Santa. They were thinking of stealing Christmas or something ridiculous, but I got so wrapped up in it. I kept thinking, What’s going to happen next?

It seems giving anything our attention is what makes it interesting. Like, I know that no one else cares about the size of my underwear, but it’s fascinating to me when I focus on it. And just like good underwear, even the silliest comedy sketches can be riveting and fun once we manage to get into them. I imagine this is how life is. We think we need a big audience. We walk into a room and say, “Where is everybody?” But last night Summer said a small crowd can be a great crowd if they simply want to be entertained. Ultimately, I guess it’s what we’re looking for, whether or not we’re willing to consider the pieces of our lives and be fascinated by them, whether or not we can take what we’re given and turn it into an adventure.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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If you think only girls cry or that crying is inappropriate for some reason, fuck you. Some things are too damn heavy to hold on to forever.

"

My Family Soap Opera (Blog #260)

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Currently my aunt is at the house. She came over to have breakfast, and the plan is for her, my dad, and me to “clean the damn house for once.” Dad’s been talking about it for weeks, and I can’t blame him. We don’t do much deep cleaning around here, and you could write your name in the dust on the coffee table. Last night I started in the kitchen and spent a few hours. There was a sheet of baking soda on the cabinet shelves so thick it looked like a couple of cocaine dealers lived here. If there were any more cobwebs on the light fixtures, we could turn this place into Disney’s Haunted Mansion.

Of course, I’m exaggerating.

Now my dad and aunt have taken a break and are watching their soap opera, Days of Our Lives. (My aunt doesn’t like Chad’s new mustache.) Both of them are quite serious about this show. If one of my dad’s friends calls between one and two, he gets so pissed. “Don’t they know my soap is on?” That’s what my grandma used to call it–my soap. Like she personally had something to do with it. Dorothy Coker, Executive Producer. Anyway, she’d say, “Marcus, I watch this show because it makes my life seem normal.” I guess since this was a benefit she could obtain without getting out of her chair or putting her teeth in, it was a pretty good deal.

The phone just rang. Dad, of course, isn’t happy about it. “Every day, somebody calls during the soap opera!”

Dad’s on a real tare today. Before I could even stumble into the kitchen and get myself vertical this morning, he told me he wanted me and “someone” to go to the hospital where Mom’s been getting chemotherapy and sing and dance–as a thank you for saving my mother’s life. Apparently there’s a board at the hospital where they tack thank-you cards that people send the staff, and Dad wants to stand out. And whereas I appreciate his thinking out of the box, I’m not exactly thrilled about the fact that he wants to pimp his son out in order to show his gratitude. “Couldn’t you just send a cookie cake or some balloons?” I said. He practically rolled his eyes. “Everybody does that.”

Now the soap is over, my aunt’s dusting, and Dad’s got the vacuum cleaner out. My assignment is to clean the bathrooms, so I really need to wrap this up.

Last night was the final improv class, which was a performance. Honestly, I was super impressed with the kids. I guess there’s something about the pressure of an audience that makes everyone rise to the occasion. Anyway, in the thick of the whole affair, my friend Aaron, who teaches the class, introduced me as on of the instructors. Ian and Summer, the other instructors, were there, and people actually clapped for us. I told Summer, “I’m just a student. I feel like a fraud.”

Well, as if that weren’t enough, Aaaon, Ian, and Summer, invited me to join their improv group, The Razorlaughs, this evening for a private Christmas party. Of course, this invitation terrified me, but it also excited me, so I said yes. So this is another reason I need to get on the stick and finish cleaning the house–the show’s in a few hours. Daddy’s got things to do, places to go, people to see. As always, I’ll let you know how it goes. Until then, I’ll be giving myself pep talks.

Be funny, Marcus. Be funny.

I guess some things never change. Friends will always call during your soap opera, parents will always volunteer their children for things they don’t want to do, and dust will always be a part of life. But other things do change, thankfully. After months of not cleaning, your family can link arms and spruce the place up. You can spend a semester or your whole life as a student, then in one night you’re a teacher, or at least ready to say goodbye to the classroom and say hello to something new. The hope of something new–this, I think, is what each new day brings.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"Kindness is never a small thing."

This Brief Streak of Light (Blog #259)

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A few days ago I stopped taking antihistamines in an effort to stop feeling so tired. Well, the good news is I think it worked. I no longer feel like one of those droopy-eyed dogs. The bad news, however, is that my allergies are still acting up, mostly in terms of watery eyes, itchy ears, and drainage. (If it’s not one thing, it’s another.) Well, since hope springs eternal, yesterday afternoon I went to a natural health food store, a different one that I usually go to. After I told the guy behind the counter what was up, he went on about homeopathics, aromatherapy, and herbs. Finally, he recommended an herbal product, so I’m giving that a whirl. (I’ll let you know how it goes.) But here’s what gets me. As I was checking out, the guy said, “A lot of people are having allergy problems lately.” I said, “Oh yeah?” Then he sniffed his nose and said, “Yeah, I certainly have been.”

Well, shit. If this guy’s got all these magic allergy potions, shouldn’t one of them be able to fix his nose full of snot? This close to returning the product, I walked out of the store feeling like I’d just be sold “a really wonderful condom” by a pregnant woman. Like, it didn’t work for me, but maybe it’ll work for you. Oh, and by the way, that’ll be thirty dollars.

Life’s better with a little salt.

Yesterday evening I got sucked into Amazon Prime’s new series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. My friend Marla recommended it, and it’s about a “perfect” Jewish girl in the 1950s who gets into standup comedy after her husband admits to having an affair with his secretary. Oh my gosh, y’all, everything about it is magical–the characters, the costumes, the writing. It’s so witty, or–to borrow a word a friend introduced me to recently–salty. (Life’s better with a little salt.) Anyway, I watched four episodes back to back last night, and as much as I love you, I honestly can’t wait to finish this blog and get back to the show.

It’s that good.

Currently it’s two in the afternoon, and I’m at the library. I had a chiropractor appointment this morning, then met my parents for lunch (like, honest-to-god lunch at noon), since they’d been to the doctor’s also. Now I’m killing time writing the blog, waiting for tonight’s improv class. Truth be told, I’m not looking forward to it. Since tonight is the last class of the year, we’ll be performing for an audience. The flyer for the event calls us The Mediocre Jokers, which–I hate to say–is accurate. I mean, we have our moments. But except for me, it’s a bunch of hormone-filled high schoolers, and they’re really a different species altogether, I’ve come to believe. Anyway, I’m thinking of showing up to the show drunk, which is what Mrs. Maisel did the first time she got on stage. Of course, she also flashed the audience, and whereas my bare chest isn’t anything to be ashamed of, a high school probably isn’t the ideal place to show it off. So all things considered, I guess I’ll stay sober.

Good plan, Marcus. Good plan.

Last night was the Geminid Meteor Shower. It’s tonight too, I believe. I just did some Googling, and apparently meteoroids are pieces or rock or debris that break off from a comet and wander about the universe. Well, when earth passes through these floating rocks as it circles the sun, that’s when we see shooting stars or meteors, since meteors are simply meteoroids that burn up as they enter earth’s atmosphere. (I knew it wasn’t easy to live here.) Anyway, last night I went outside in a heavy blanket, turned my head toward the sky, and waited. In just a couple minutes, I saw three shooting stars back to back. Before I called it quits and went inside, I’d seen close to twenty. Talk about magical. More than once, I actually squealed out loud.

While looking for shooting stars, I mostly faced the south, since that’s what the television told me to do. Still, I saw shooting stars in the east and west, so I realized that for every shooting star I saw, there were plenty more just over my shoulder. This made me think about the fact that there were dozens of shooting stars that continued to fall after I went inside, hundreds of beautiful little moments that went quietly into the night as I lay sleeping, unaware.

A meteor doesn’t require an audience to shine.

So often I worry about the future, what my health, what my career will look like. I think about whether or not I’m doing everything just so, just as I think about who reads these words and wonder if anyone really sees me. But it seems as if a meteor is different than I am. Unafraid to stumble about the universe, it is by definition willing to burn itself up in an effort to get from one world to another. And who cares if it succeeds? Failure is just a lovely. What’s more, a meteor doesn’t require an audience to shine. In this sense, perhaps we could all be more like the meteor, this thing we call beautiful, this brief streak of light.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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If anything is ever going to change for the better, the truth has to come first.

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Changing Your Socks, Changing Your World (Blog #258)

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It’s almost officially winter, and my parents’ house is sixty-seven degrees. I’m freezing. In an effort to keep heat in, this morning I put on thick, wool socks and a knitted cap. Granted, I’m wearing a t-shirt, but I really, really hate “bulk.” People talk about their love of sweaters and scarves–and, oh my god, mittens!–but it’s simply not me. I much prefer shorts and a tank top, soaking up the sun on a warm beach. But back to the temperature inside this house–it’s my dad’s fault. He’s always hot, breaks a sweat at the drop of a hat, so he’s constantly inching the thermostat down, gradually turning our home into a seventeen-thousand-foot meat locker.

My mom and I fight for degrees. “Ron, would it be okay to turn the thermostat up to sixty-eight, just until we all go to bed?” my mom will say. Honestly, I don’t even bother. Granted, one degree is one degree, but ten would be better. Even now my toes are crowding against each other, huddled up trying desperately to produce heat. I’ve heard this happens when a person is dying–all the blood rushes away from your extremities and heads straight for your vital organs in an effort to preserve as much life as possible. For me this feels like those movies where sailors throw cargo off a ship to keep it from sinking. Every winter my body says, “Screw the toes, screw the feet–toss ’em overboard–who needs ’em?”

Oh sure, they only take us everywhere we go!

Okay, fine, I give up. I just put on a sweatshirt. I’m holding a cup of hot coffee like it’s a personal hand warmer. Because my butt never gets warm in the winter either, I’m thinking about sitting on a heating pad for the rest of the day. As for my feet, maybe I could put them in the microwave. Shit. Here I am considering nuking my own body, and ten feet away my dad is watching The People’s Court in a t-shirt, shorts, and bare feet, smiling, probably thinking how nice it’d be to have a fan on. I guess we all have our own standards of perfection.

Perfection is ever-elusive.

The last time I saw my therapist, she asked, “Marcus, do you still believe in the idea of perfection?” I said, “Well, it sounds great, but I can’t find any evidence for it.” What I meant is that I’ve yet to discover something that couldn’t be better. No matter what the temperature is, I’d like to adjust the thermostat. No matter how good of a dancer or writer I am, I’d like to improve. Perfection, it seems, is ever-elusive. It’s a fantasy we think about that never materializes. It’s whatever we don’t have until we have it, then it’s something else.

Once I went to a workshop in Austin with Byron Katie. One of her teachings is that when we argue with reality, we lose. For example, if my feet are cold and I think they should be warm in this moment, I’m going to suffer (and write a blog about it). But what’s the truth? (They’re cold.) Anyway, at this workshop, Katie said that if we died and went to heaven with our current way of thinking, we wouldn’t be there any more. In other words, our minds would tell us, “It’s too windy–the gold streets are hard to walk on–I don’t like harp music–I wish John were here.” Or whatever–we all have our list of complaints we take everywhere we go.

I don’t use this line with anyone else, but whenever I leave the house and say goodbye to my parents, I say, “I’m off to change the world.” Mostly I consider this statement cute and ironic, since I spend the average day somewhere between a coffee shop and Walmart, picking my nose at traffic lights. Anyway, a couple days ago I was at my friend Bonnie’s house, and she had a funny napkin that said, “What did you do to change the world today?” Well, the guy on the napkin’s answer was, “I changed my socks! That counts!”

If you want to find a problem, you will.

Believing that you can find wisdom almost anywhere, I’ve been meditating on that napkin since I saw it. For one thing, I think changing the world is easier than we think. Like, I could start wearing wool socks, and that really could make a difference. I could be warmer, happier, easier to get along with. In this sense, it’s the little things. But for another thing, I don’t think we can really change the world. Sure, we can make a difference, and we should. But the world is a mess–it always has been and always will be. It’s too cold for one person, too hot for another. Maybe you think there’s too much violence or too much pollution, but the point is the same–if you want to find a problem, you will. So rather than trying to change the world, perhaps our time is better spent trying to change ourselves, working on the way we see the world, and realizing that life is perfect just the way it is.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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So perhaps perfection has little to do with that which changes and everything to do with that which doesn't. For surely there is a still, small something inside each of us that never changes, something that is timeless and untouchable, something inherently valuable and lovable--something perfect.

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Me, the Winter, and Stevie Nicks (Blog #257)

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It’s early afternoon, and the house is quiet. Mom is asleep, and Dad’s out running around. At least for me, this is a treat. I’m at the kitchen table, the trees in the backyard are letting go of their leaves, and Fleetwood Mac is playing beside me on my phone. I guess at some point every gay man has to fall in love with Stevie Nicks, one of the club requirements as it were. For me it happened just over a year ago before I moved out of The Big House and had the estate sale. At that point I had a record player I inherited from a family friend named Faye Marie. She took care of my Dad when he was growing up, she’s where my sister’s middle name (Marie) came from, and she’s all over our family photos. When she died I got the record player, a lamp, and a vintage alarm clock, all of which were later sold in my estate sale. Still, the last thing I did with Faye Marie’s record player was put on Stevie Nicks. Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Listening to Stevie sing on my phone isn’t quite the same as hearing her on vinyl, and sometimes I wonder if I made a mistake getting rid of that phonograph and all my records. For the most part I don’t miss the things I sold, but sometimes I do. There was something comfortable about coming home, falling down on my sofa for the hundredth time, and seeing my books on the bookshelf that used to hold my Legos, the one with the desk where I used to do homework in high school. It was familiar. Ultimately, I’m glad those things are gone (dusting is easier now), and I’m glad I had a choice in the matter. Some friends recently had their house broken into, and many of their cherished things were taken. Unlike me, they were forced to let go. I guess this is what happens when we die. Even if you manage to keep your things with you for a hundred years, sooner or later the two of you have to go separate ways.

There’s nothing you can do to change the seasons or hurry them along.

At some point in human history, people noticed there was a mathematical order to the heavens, that the moon cycled every so many days, that the planets traveled certain paths, and that the seasons consistently changed. As I understand it, the priests were the astrologers, and most the celebrations, rituals, and holidays were centered around heavenly events as an affirmation of what was inevitable. (If you can’t beat it, join it.) As I sit here now, it’s late fall–the sun is shining, but the air is chilly. Personally, I hate the cold. I’m really looking forward to the winter solstice, the day that marks the point when “the sun” is reborn and the days start getting longer. Even more so, I’m looking forward to spring. Warmth! Still, there’s nothing I can do to change the seasons or hurry them along. Things happen when they happen.

Yesterday my therapist said that I’m in a weird period right now, that I had reasonable plans last year, but then a bunch of shit happened. (Shit happens.) So now I’m with Mom and Dad, trying to make this writing thing work. My therapist said, “I really don’t think it’s matter of if, but rather a matter of when.” Of course, I hope she’s right. Regardless, part of me knows that this is just a season, that things will eventually change into something else, but another part of me feels as if this winter will never relent.

Each season has something to offer.

Often it’s easy for me to forget this isn’t my first winter, that I’ve been through the ringer of life more than once. Having let go of most of my worldly possessions, I know I can let go of the idea of spring, at least until she’s ready to return to me. Perhaps this is what hope looks like, trusting that she’ll indeed return one day, that I’ll fall down on my own sofa again soon, that everything under heaven will circle back around. In the meantime, it’s me, the winter, and Stevie Nicks. Personally, I’m trying to remember that each season has something to offer, that every tree has to let go of its leaves before they can grow back again, and that every changing season is one I can handle.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Each season has something to offer.

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